Spence's Frank Advice

"Nobel Leader's Frank Advice to China's Leadership," is the headline over a Times news article about work that the Nobel laureate economist A. Michael Spence is doing on China. The article says:

Mr. Spence has become something of an expert on the Chinese economy after being invited by Beijing, along with Edwin Lim, a former chief World Bank representative in China, to put together an unaffiliated advisory group, supported by the Cairncross Economic Research Foundation. The group has met intensively with the Chinese government's key planning and economic officials and conducted what those officials have called an unprecedented study of China's development challenge.

How does the Times know that Professor Spence's advice is "frank"? I read the Times article and couldn't find any reference at all to Mr. Spence advising the Chinese government about political or religious freedom and democracy, or about allowing free labor unions the right to organize or strike.

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